More Bike Racks Coming to Georgia Avenue — Where Are They Needed?
As I reported at the start of the week, quite a number of new bike racks were installed last week on the section of Georgia Avenue between New Hampshire Avenue and Otis Place. In following up with DDOT and the Great Streets team, I’ve learned that more bike racks are coming as well as trash cans and benches. I believe that we can also get some of the current bike racks moved if they need to be.
Below are the maps for Georgia Avenue showing the area between New Hampshire Avenue and Otis Place, NW. Bike racks circled in blue have already been installed, those circled in red are yet to be installed. I’m posting them here to better learn where residents and business owners would like to see them installed.
Tags: bikes, Georgia Avenue corridor, Great Streets, Park View
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December 16, 2011 at 9:55 am
It’s great to see DDOT being proactive about bike racks in the community. As someone who has used full racks along Georgia Ave, this will certainly help. Putting racks out front of our retail business helps ensure that cyclists have a safe AND convenient place to park. It’s also great to see that CVS will get additional racks considering the ones they have are installed incorrectly.
December 16, 2011 at 10:52 am
Agree with Rob’s points. Thanks for chasing this down. My notes, in bullet form.
• There aren’t going to be any installed on the corner in front of the new condo building (Park Place? I forget the name. The one on top of metro.) Is that a different segment of the project? They could certainly use some, and there’s ample space on that NE corner of the GA/NH intersection because of how it bulges out.
• From what I’ve seen, they could stand to put a few more in front of Looking Glass/Blue Banana. That’s where they’ve put in 4 instead of 1 or 2, which is great, but those have been often filling up at night. In 40 degree weather. And isn’t there another bar type place opening up a few doors down? I wonder if it’s not a great place to put in an on-street bike corral in that very first parking spot next to the bulbout in front of Looking Glass. (In addition to the 4 racks that are there.) If that’s not feasible, the single rack to the immediate south of the 4-rack at Blue Banana should be expanded to more than 1 rack, preferably also to 4. We should keep in mind that if it’s busy now when it’s cold, wait until it’s 72 degrees on a spring day. And new businesses nearby. One thing that the Columbia Heights metro/target/streetscaping project should have taught all of us, is that it’s virtually impossible to overestimate how much bike parking is needed in good commercial corridors and centers.
• For the CVS, it would be nice if instead of separating the 3 racks, if they put all three together where the single rack is (closer to Georgia than New Hampshire.) And it’d be great if the morons who installed the one wrong on CVS’ property came back and fixed it.
As a totally separate item, I’ve always wondered about this crazy idea: extending the rounded curb in front of the CVS out into the intersection as far as you can towards Georiga to shorten the crossing distance across Georgia to and from RCC? Right turns from NH north onto GA south could be prohibited if they’re not already since you can just turn right onto Spring/Princeton to go south. I guess it’s too late for this since they’ve already done all that streetscaping but diagonal crossings across 4+lanes of width are criminally wide.
December 18, 2011 at 10:56 pm
Steve — thanks for your comments. I’ll include them when I speak with DDOT.
December 20, 2011 at 10:52 am
Thanks, Kent. FYI, I’m @whiteknuckled on twitter. Appreciate all your work on this issue. (And many others!)
December 21, 2011 at 7:02 am
[…] of my time lately, so I thought I should post a quick update on where things are headed since my meeting with the Great Streets crew on Monday morning. The most significant change I was able to get incorporated into the plan is to […]
December 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm
There should be a bike rack on one of the corners at the intersection of Georgia and Irving Sts. It is a direct biking route from the Petworth and Columbia Heights metros. Also would help promote bike traffic to the park, and would benefit those bus riders taking one of the H’s (2,3,4) coming up Irving or down Columbia or the 64…
December 26, 2011 at 11:59 am
Good point. I know they just added a Capitol Bikeshare station at Georgia and Columbia which underscores that it is an important biking area.
June 22, 2012 at 7:02 am
[…] in December 2011, as the Middle Georgia Avenue Great Streets project was nearing its end, I met with DDOT to discuss […]
December 28, 2012 at 7:02 am
[…] began in May 2010. In addition to curbs, gutters, and sidewalk improvements the $8M project added more bike racks to the area north of Otis Place, NW, and new trees to the intersection of New Hampshire and Georgia […]
May 30, 2013 at 7:01 am
[…] more bike racks to the 3600 block of Georgia Avenue, but in reviewing my notes it was actually in December 2011 that this need was last addressed with additional racks installed in June 2012. Here we are nearly […]
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