Garfield Park

I recently attended the Garfield Park-Canal Park Connector Project Planning Meeting.

The goal of the Garfield Park - Canal Park Connector is to improve the bicycle and pedestrian passage under the Southeast Freeway at 2nd Street, SE; making this linkage into a functional and attractive route between Capitol Hill and Near Southeast.

They broke the larger group into smaller groups and I sat with the biking-pedestrian group. The first issue was how to use the park to allow cyclists to connect from 2nd street north of the park to south of the park. Immediately the group began talking about how children use the park and discussed how to push cyclists out to the perimeter. One woman even claimed she didn't want to encourage cyclists to ride past the nearby school (but she was OK with cars).  There were a few other cyclists there and we made the point that a bike route could be defined that would provide separation between cyclists and the playground. Someone made the point that if no bike route was given, cyclist would use the sidewalk - which was narrow and in the heart of the activity area. I said that cyclists don't want to ride where kids or dog walkers are, but if there is no other option that's what they'll do. Eventually the group came to an agreement, that we would try to create separation, but that three routes would be defined, one from 2nd Street that arced around the east side of the activity area, one from the corner of South Carolina and 3rd Street that connected to that and one from 1st Street running along the western and southern edges of the park. All three would pass under the freeway at 2nd Street.

2nd Street, which gets little to no traffic, would be a better connector if it became a bike and pedestrian only road. Or perhaps treating them as woonerfs, a street or group of streets where bike and pedestrians have legal priority over cars. Cars are restricted to speeds comparable with a walking pace. It's possible Virginia Avenue from South Capital to 3rd Street (already closed) could be added to the woonerf. I street will be reconnected. If H Street west of 2nd is removed, it could be replaced with a bike path connecting to New Jersey Avenue (outside the study area).

I wonder how much of this will be done.

Comments

[w]

too many of the people on Capitol Hill are openly hostile to anything except cars and suburban thinking. Thanks for being there to help to counter this imbecilic and backwards looking mindset.