Southwest Waterfront redevelopment, Water St. to be closed

[lordofthemark]

Note to all that far right lane, on SE bound side of Maine, is NOT a cycle track. It appears to be a conventional traffic lane, though traffic seems to avoid it. I took it SE bound this AM, but I have seen cyclists salmoning in it, and I think people walking in it. I wanted to take a closer look to see if it actually was blocked to motor vehicle traffic, but it is not.

[creadinger]

@lordofthemark 114460 wrote:

Note to all that far right lane, on SE bound side of Maine, is NOT a cycle track. It appears to be a conventional traffic lane, though traffic seems to avoid it. I took it SE bound this AM, but I have seen cyclists salmoning in it, and I think people walking in it. I wanted to take a closer look to see if it actually was blocked to motor vehicle traffic, but it is not.

Yeah, I rarely see drivers use it anymore because they have to merge later anyway and there are often buses parked in it these days, but yeah. Salmoning there = bad idea because it’s not officially closed, and there’s no where to bail out if you get caught out.

My question for this area is – when will things actually start to get better?? There are all of these plans for how it will look in 2 years, but ever since they closed Water St, the conditions of everything over there has gotten progressively worse and generally more fucked up. On Wednesday I was surprised to see only 1 lane of Maine Ave going NW was open because they poured some fresh concrete, blocking even peds and cyclist too. The frustrated drivers didn’t seem too willing to share their one lane with me for the 15 yards that I had to merge in with them.

I hate that area. I’ve already detoured my commute to using Case Bridge, instead of going past the fish market but it’s getting ridiculous.

[PotomacCyclist]

I wouldn’t count on any major improvements for quite a while. I doubt they are going to do the major road work until the building construction is in its final stages. It wouldn’t make sense to do road renovations, then have the road get chewed up by heavy construction trucks. So my guess is that the road won’t be improved until the final months of Phase I, whenever that is. 2017? Later?

[Kolohe]

@PotomacCyclist 114478 wrote:

I wouldn’t count on any major improvements for quite a while. I doubt they are going to do the major road work until the building construction is in its final stages. It wouldn’t make sense to do road renovations, then have the road get chewed up by heavy construction trucks. So my guess is that the road won’t be improved until the final months of Phase I, whenever that is. 2016? 2017? Later?

Then again, it really didn’t make sense to build out that section of the nominal Anacostia river trail between 15th street and the fish market right before the rest of the connection to the Anacostia along the waterfront was going to get obliterated. (otoh, it probably won’t get too messed up by the construction itself).

[PotomacCyclist]

As you noted, that part of the trail is outside of the active construction zone and unlikely to be affected by construction. The redevelopment project does not extend to Case Bridge.

[lordofthemark]

One advantage of all the work vehicles is that they do slow down the traffic on Maine, which made taking the lane much more inviting to me this AM.

[bentbike33]

They’ve started laying blacktop over the concrete roadbed on Maine Ave. Much less dodging of raised manholes, etc. Unexpected given the heavy truck traffic still there, but (some) schedules must be kept, I suppose.

[lordofthemark]

From 9th to 7th was just beautiful – all fresh blacktop, and at least this morning hardly any traffic when I came through.

But some dude in kit seemed to think the as yet uncompleted part of the far right lane west of 9th was a 2 way cycle track. Not good.

[PotomacCyclist]

1100 Maine Ave. SW: Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, developers of The Wharf, will use a Wharf parking lot to hang “artistic light fixtures” under the Case Bridge for roughly three to fours hours and power the light using a boom truck with a power generator at 15-20 minute intervals. This is a temporary mock-up to test the design of the bridge lighting approved in April by the Commission of Fine Arts.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2015/05/some-buildson-benning-douglas-digs-on-new-york.html

I don’t know if this will affect bike/pedestrian traffic, but it should provide a light show for passersby. I don’t know when this will take place.

[PotomacCyclist]

I guess they are paving the road because they can’t leave it in a torn-up condition for two more years. The asphalt will get worn down but they can repave it again, when the 1st phase of The Wharf is ready (in 2017?).

[PotomacCyclist]

MAINE AVENUE FISH MARKET PLAN

Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, the developer of The Wharf, also holds a 99-year lease on the Maine Avenue Fish Market. They have essentially combined the market with The Wharf in their planning.

They have just revealed plans for an extensive renewal of the fish market. I’m not sure if I heard about this before. I thought they might skip over the fish market, but it makes sense to do some work there too. The parking lots and access lanes are in poor shape and the plot looks run-down and just plain ugly. It’s the first thing that visitors see when traveling from the Tidal Basin to the future Wharf.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2015/07/here-s-the-plan-to-restore-d-c-s-historic-maine.html

In this video, the CEO of PN Hoffman (one of the partners in Hoffman-Madison Waterfront) says that they will add a rum distillery, a pavilion, outdoor seating and a large market hall with a beer/wine shop, a restaurant, and an Italian butcher. (I don’t know why they specify an Italian butcher, but that’s what the article says.) The fish market will be retained but spruced up a bit. The CEO says that they are working with the people who live aboard the boats in the nearby marina to address concerns that they may have.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is looking at the proposal. They seem cautiously optimistic about the plans.

The article includes a slideshow of concept renderings, plus a site plan. The text of the plan document is too small to read clearly. You can open the image in a new tab to get a slightly larger display:

http://media.bizj.us/view/img/6382722/fish-market-site-plan.jpg

There is no specific mention of cycling accommodations. But given that the main Wharf development will include 1,750 bicycle parking spaces, I think they may include additional bike parking near the fish market where possible. Even if they don’t add many bike racks at the new fish market development, there should be plenty of bike racks at the nearby Wharf buildings, maybe within 50 feet.

They included cyclists in slides 4-6. They wouldn’t have done this if they were planning to keep bikes out of the new fish market area.

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I also noticed that they will bury the overhead utility lines.

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This is what the fish market looks like today:

https://goo.gl/maps/rOibF

[I’m adding this text to the 1st post of the thread too.]

P.S. Yes, this would mean the closure of the fish market area, perhaps in stages. Cycling through that area will be affected negatively. Be prepared. But the structures aren’t as large as those at The Wharf, so construction shouldn’t take nearly as long as it will at The Wharf.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I’d be happy if they just promised to pick up the road diapers at the end of every weekend. Monday a.m. commute was a 2 diaper crit.

[lordofthemark]

I would not assume the folks doing the pictures are coordinating with the plans for transportation access, to the point where you can assume a bike in the picture means bike riding will be allowed on any particular section of path. I am not saying I am sure it won’t be – I will wait and see when it opens.

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m not basing this just on the pictures. I’m also basing it on the fact that they will be including 1,750 bicycle parking spaces at the main Wharf development, plus opening one of the sections of the Wharf “Street” to low-speed cycling and coordinating (and cooperating?) on the future Maine Ave protected bikeway. But I do think there is something to the fact that they chose to feature bikes in three of the slides. In many of the renderings for other large projects, cyclists are rarely depicted. This indicates to me that someone is going out of their way to include it, and the developer has already gone out of their way to include a lot of bike features in the main development.

Most of the new higher-end developments in the area (at least in DC and Arlington) include more bike elements than older buildings did. I’ve noticed this while mapping bike racks for RackSpotter. Almost all of the new developments have bike racks dotted throughout. Many of them also have large bike rack set-ups in their indoor parking garages. Some have bike repair rooms for residents.

I compare this to most of the older apartment and office buildings. Very few of the older apartment buildings have bike racks, from what I’ve seen in Arlington and DC. When they do have a bike rack, it’s often a beat-up, rusty wheelbender, and it’s often placed close to a wall, which makes some of the racks nearly useless. Some of the older office buildings might have a limited number of bike racks, but not as many as newer developments. I think most of the developers in this area understand that bike amenities are now being associated with more active, successful and affluent projects. (I’m not saying this is the case or that it’s always true. I’m merely noting that almost all of the new projects seem to be going out of their way to include bike elements and also to advertise that they have those items.)

[Tim Kelley]

@PotomacCyclist 119698 wrote:

I’m not basing this just on the pictures. I’m also basing it on the fact that they will be including 1,750 bicycle parking spaces at the main Wharf development, plus opening one of the sections of the Wharf “Street” to low-speed cycling and coordinating (and cooperating?) on the future Maine Ave protected bikeway. But I do think there is something to the fact that they chose to feature bikes in three of the slides. In many of the renderings for other large projects, cyclists are rarely depicted. This indicates to me that someone is going out of their way to include it, and the developer has already gone out of their way to include a lot of bike features in the main development.

Most of the new higher-end developments in the area (at least in DC and Arlington) include more bike elements than older buildings did. I’ve noticed this while mapping bike racks for RackSpotter. Almost all of the new developments have bike racks dotted throughout. Many of them also have large bike rack set-ups in their indoor parking garages. Some have bike repair rooms for residents.

I compare this to most of the older apartment and office buildings. Very few of the older apartment buildings have bike racks, from what I’ve seen in Arlington and DC. When they do have a bike rack, it’s often a beat-up, rusty wheelbender, and it’s often placed close to a wall, which makes some of the racks nearly useless. Some of the older office buildings might have a limited number of bike racks, but not as many as newer developments. I think most of the developers in this area understand that bike amenities are now being associated with more active, successful and affluent projects. (I’m not saying this is the case or that it’s always true. I’m merely noting that almost all of the new projects seem to be going out of their way to include bike elements and also to advertise that they have those items.)

That due to changing site plan requirements which make provisions for bike parking and amenities!! http://www.commuterpage.com/pages/special-programs/tdm-for-site-plans/bicycle-parking-specifications/

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