A controversial plan to bring a bike lane to the busy Connecticut Avenue corridor in Northwest Washington has been abandoned, a District official said Thursday.
The plan quickly divided bicycling advocates, who pushed for creating the bike route, and business owners, who claimed the lane would impact their customers. Officials said last year that the plan was being revised amid concerns about the loss of parking, effects on businesses, and access for people with disabilities and seniors.
At a hearing Thursday of the D.C. Council’s Committee for Transportation and the Environment, Sharon Kershbaum, acting director of the city’s Department of Transportation, told legislators that the bike lane had been scuttled.
Kershbaum said officials still want to search for a north-south corridor for bikes through Ward 3, but current safety plans for Connecticut Avenue “will not include a bike lane.”
“There are some bike lanes we have that are suboptimal,” she said. “I think we made some poor decisions in our effort to build out the network. Now we are going to be far more intentional.”
She added, “We are not going to engage in terms of revisiting adding a bike lane.”
A Department of Transportation spokesman declined further comment.
Council member Matthew Frumin (D-Ward 3), whose questioning of Kershbaum led to the disclosure about the bike lane, said he was aware of the changes before the hearing. He lamented the long process that led officials to endorse the lane before moving away from it.
“It took less time to put a man on the moon than it has to build this bike lane,” he said at the hearing.
In an interview, Frumin said Bowser had changed her mind about the plan because of concerns about traffic congestion amid her effort to revitalize downtown.
“If they do the analysis again, there’s a good chance they’re going to conclude that Connecticut Avenue is the right place to do it, which is what they concluded before,” he said.
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), chair of the Committee for Transportation and the Environment, said in an interview that he disagreed with the decision. To move people around the city safely and reduce climate change caused by cars, according to Allen, officials must look to other modes of transportation.
However, Allen said he was skeptical that the Bowser administration would revisit its choice.
“They want to move forward with a project that does not have protected bike lanes,” he said. “We will live with that for 50 years.”
The abrupt disclosure at the hearing brought the ire of activists who believed that the bike lane would make one of the District’s most important corridors more walkable and environmentally friendly.
Bob Ward, chair of Cleveland Park Smart Growth, which advocates for bikers and pedestrians, said in an interview that Bowser had made “a 180-degree turn,” abandoning a sound plan despite years of community input.
“I think the reason why this abrupt about-face happened is probably a misperceived idea that the more parking she can put on Connecticut Avenue, the better business will be,” he said. “It’s a real disappointment.”
Lee Mayer, the leader of a group called Save Connecticut Avenue, which opposes the bike lane, said the “horrible plan” was pushed through during the coronavirus pandemic by a minority of bike commuters.
Meanwhile, according to Mayer, the lane was opposed by local businesses, pedestrians, emergency responders and people with limited mobility.
“This has always been about public safety,” he said. “Our efforts to bring this all to light has resulted in this positive decision.”
