Photo by Brownpau.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Adminspotter.
This has been a great week for Capital Bikeshare! It started off with Slate naming it the best bikeshare program in the country. And now the inestimable M.V. Jantzen has created a program that allows you to click on any bikeshare station and find out where people ride to from that station and where people road from to arrival there.
The data for the Georgetown stations (taken from the 3rd quarter of 2012) is predictable, but interesting. Check them out:
Wisconsin and Canal:
K and 30th:
Filed under Bikes
As wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice gift, Georgetown received its fifth Capital Bikeshare station, this one located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave. and M St.
This is a perfect location for a bikeshare station, and GM expects it to be used heavily. This use will likely increase even more once DDOT installs the M St. cycletrack. And as Lydia DePillis over at Citypaper dug up, a large chunk of Bikeshare use is attributable to tourists. So it’s likely that once tourism season ramps up next spring, lots of tourists will target this station as their destination. Which is great! GM just hopes that the Bikeshare workers are ready to manage the shifts in demand for the station. Continue reading
Filed under Transportation
Photo by Random Duck.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Jasonpier.
DDOT announced yesterday the location of 32 new Capital Bikeshare locations (and 18 expansions of current stations). Georgetown is getting only one new station (and one expansion). The new station will be at M and Pennsylvania and the station on Wisconsin by the canal will be expanded. The expansions should take place this fall.
Back in April, DDOT initial proposed this expansion, and included two proposed locations for Georgetown. They were the north end of Rose Park and the Long and Foster parking lot. Both of these proposed locations were problematic for different reasons GM discussed back then.
In a way, DDOT’s decision for Georgetown is a win and a loss. Bikeshare proponents (including GM) lobbied DDOT to reconsider the proposed locations and put the Rose Park station at M and Pennsylvania and the Long and Foster station at Hyde. The ANC–which has been the most proactive ANC in the city for inviting Bikeshare–also supported this position. So getting a station at M and Pennsylvania is great. It will no doubt be one of the most popular stations in the system (particularly once the M st. cycletracks are built). Continue reading
Filed under Capital Bikeshare
Last night the ANC met for its June session. It retreaded on some familiar ground, but there was enough new stuff to keep it from “Groundhog Day” territory.
Crime:
Sgt. Hedgecock gave his ordinary presentation on the state of MPD activity in Georgetown. It contained the normal reminders to keep your eyes open and to make sure not to keep your doors unlocked. But then he reported on a rather alarming crime. Apparently on May 22nd, a woman was picked up by a cab from the corner of Prospect and Wisconsin. But the cab driver drove the cab to somewhere other than where the woman wanted, and then proceeded to sexually assault her. This may be related to an earlier assault that originated in Dupont. Police have a lookout for a 30-40 year old middle eastern man driver a dark colored taxicab, not that that’s particularly helpful, but you ought to keep your eyes out for suspicious acting taxicab drivers.
O & P Streets:
The ANC gave a quick update on the O & P Streets construction. Apparently Washington Gas has had to extend its construction footprint due to the nature of their conversion to a high-pressure system. Also worth noting is that the project has its own PR firm and a website. So you don’t need to come to interminable community meetings to keep up to date. Finally, if you live along the construction and want the water pipe replaced between your house and the street, you need to reach out now.
Capital Bikeshare:
Chris Holben, DDOT’s CaBi director, spoke before the ANC about the two new proposed Georgetown stations: on P north of Rose Park and in the Long and Foster parking lot. The ANC is opposed to the north Rose Park location (they prefer the south end of Rose Park along M St.) and don’t necessarily oppose the Long & Foster location, but would prefer a station at Hyde-Addison. Holben said he’d take another look at those two locations, but made no promises.
Better news: Holben announced that on top of the 25 more stations that DC is adding soon, Tommy Wells has added $2 million to the budget for station expansion, which will result in 40 addition stations beyond the 25. This will mean a total of over 160 stations in the District (plus dozens more in Virginia). So even if Georgetown isn’t 100% happy with this next expansion, there will be more bites at the apple. Continue reading
Tonight, the ANC meets for its May session. It looks like a relatively uneventful agenda, but that’s never stopped the ANC from going long before!
EastBanc
EastBanc returns again tonight to discuss one of their proposed large scale projects. This time its the Verizon building project on Wisconsin just south of the canal. The project has gone through several revisions. The first major change was to shift away from an all-stone project to a mixture of brick on the Wisconsin Ave. side and stone facing the canal. Last month, however, the Old Georgetown Board still objected to the design. The objections focused on the imposing nature of the stone wall facing the canal, and the confusing facade facing Wisconsin (GM’s seen it, and it is a bit jumbled).
We’ll see tonight how they respond.
Capital Bikeshare
Despite efforts to identify locations in the neighborhood for new Capital Bikeshare stations, DDOT proposed two other locations, neither of which make a ton of sense (one is at the east end of Rose Park, the other is in the Long and Foster parking lot on Wisconsin Ave.)
Tonight the ANC is taking the first steps to politely request that DDOT consider the locations that the ANC first identified. There is a bit of a fear that if the ANC complains too much about the proposed stations, DDOT will simply take them away. The ANC has to strike the right tone by saying that Georgetown definitely wants these two stations, they just need to be relocated to more desirable spots.
One spot that was not previously considered, but which might make a ton of sense, is at that triangle park between Pennsylvania Ave. and M St. next to the gas station. The park itself is owned by the federal government, and DDOT hasn’t worked out an arrangement with the feds yet to locate stations on federal land. But the sidewalk next to the park is city owned. And with the park next to the sidewalk, a station could go on the city-owned sidewalk without blocking the way (pedestrians would just walk around the station onto the federally owned part). While this still wouldn’t get a station into the residential blocks, it would provide a better option for lower East Village residents than currently exists. Continue reading
Filed under ANC
Photo by Jasonpier.
Yesterday, DDOT announced the proposed location of 25 more Capital Bikeshare locations. Of those, two are going to be in Georgetown. This is great news. What’s not so great is where DDOT is planning to put them.
In January, as a result of efforts mostly from Ken Archer, the ANC approved a resolution asking DDOT to consider putting Bikeshare stations at four locations: the sidewalk outside Hyde-Addison, the playground of the Jackson School (across from Montrose Park), the Georgetown Library, and the sidewalk of M St. just west of the Rock Creek bridge. Each of the first three of those locations was vetted with the stakeholders and even representatives of DDOT. So they weren’t merely idle wishes for locations. The last location was added by ANC commissioner Tom Birch because, hey, it’s probably a great location if a station could fit.
No one from DDOT promised that Georgetown would get any stations, let alone at these recommended locations. But it seemed reasonable to assume that if DDOT gave Georgetown more stations that they’d put them at locations specifically requested through a diligent process.
So it came as a surprise to see that DDOT is proposing putting two stations at locations not even previously considered. They recommend putting a station at the intersection of Reservoir and Wisconsin and a station along P St. near the Rock Creek Parkway exit.
Both these locations have significant problems. Continue reading
Filed under Bikes
TJ St. bridge (and duck) by Carol Joynt.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
GU at sunset by Ehpien.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
You must be logged in to post a comment.