Congestion and Accidents 

Bus project aside, Irving Street has problems. For most of its length in Columbia Heights, Irving is a one-way eastbound street with no painted lane markings and essentially three lanes. 

On most blocks Irving's north lane is dedicated to parking except for Tuesdays (street cleaning) while the south lane is a weekday travel lane between 7am and 7pm. Rarely, however, are both travel lanes actually clear during peak travel hours; towing of illegally parked vehicles is inconsistent and costly to the city. Traveling vehicles often have to dodge an illegally parked car and accidents and congestion result. The chaotic and at-capacity quality of Irving's streetscape shows up in the city's own planning data: PM peak volume-to-capacity ratios on Irving are greater than 0.9 showing consistently slow traffic and a system that's operating poorly.  

According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials: “An undifferentiated traveled way encourages higher speeds. Crash rates have been shown to increase as lane width increases.” In the Winter of ‘21-’22 three major multi-car accidents occurred at 11th and Irving because drivers raced each other through the intersection as the lanes converge due to parked cars. One crash involved a newborn child who was coming home from the hospital with her parents; they had to go back to the hospital, but fortunately everyone was ok. Since then, at least two more major crashes have occurred in that intersection. Just last month, a block west at Irving and 13th, a taxi cab flipped over while traveling through the intersection.

Pedestrians are Treated like Second Class Citizens

Irving Street traverses one of the densest and most diverse residential and mixed-use neighborhoods in the whole of Washington DC. Pedestrians on that street deserve a safer and healthier environment. Even where they are widest, Irving's sidewalks typically fail to meet the bare minimum recommended width for walking space (5ft). The vast majority of the streetscape today is dedicated to private vehicles and even with this arrangement there are chronic issues with congestion. 

Tubman Elementary School on 13th and Irving is undergoing a significant renovation (completion anticipated in 2026). Tubman serves approximately 529 students, and post-renovation the school will be able to accommodate an even larger number of students. The Department of Education expects to utilize that capacity to serve a larger district boundary instead of building new smaller elementaries in the neighborhood. Therefore, young student pedestrian rates will be expected to continue to increase on Irving, Kenyon, 13th, and 11th, the streets that surround the school.

The walk-shed of the Columbia Heights Metro station on 14th and Irving includes at least 10,842 households (2015 data); that's the highest of any metro station in the district. The confluence of density and municipal facilities on Irving means that there is significant foot traffic, especially children, on this route. How should DDOT consider these factors in planning a bus lane?

Putting Pedestrians First Won't Slow Transit 

The sheer number of vulnerable pedestrians on and around Irving Street necessitates a shared street design that deprioritizes private vehicles and discourages speeding. That approach would include narrower and meandering travel lanes, landscaped sidewalk bulb-outs, and more street furniture and amenities that crowd out dangerous driving and expand the utility and beauty of the streetscape for walkers.

Despite limiting private vehicles, shared street designs can improve transit speed and service. As NACTO writes:  “While traffic speeds are considerably reduced on shared streets, average transit speeds are typically appropriate for short sections of local service. Shared streets have the potential to improve transit speed or reliability if general traffic volumes are reduced, or if intersection traffic controls can be eliminated as part of the shared street design."

Case Studies and Greenspace

Take NACTO's profile of Bell Street Park in Seattle as an example. Like Irving, Bell Street was a (1) one-way, (2) two-lane street with a parking lane, (3) traversing the most densely populated neighborhood in the city, and (4) carrying an essential bus route (300 busses daily, more than Irving). Despite the busy bus schedule the city was able to reclaim previously dedicated driving space for more flexible use and utility and slow private vehicles via a meandering roadway design. The results speak for themselves: the neighborhood has a park-like pedestrian-friendly block and "buses traverse Bell Street with 10–15 minute or better headways all day and late into the evening, 365 days per year—the same as the volume prior to reconstruction." Irving would be an ideal street to test a similar design here in DC. It could become a model for fast transit that maintains healthy, safe, and dense residential spaces.

Given the pedestrian traffic to and from Park View via Irving street to the metro station on 14th, and given the planned expansion of the already substantial student population at Tubman Elementary (between 13th and 11th) the entire Irving corridor from 14th to Georgia Ave (4 blocks) could be made into a safe and green environment that prioritizes transit and pedestirans over private vehicles. The added greenspace would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood which has some of the lowest park acreage per population in the city. 

A shared street doesn't mean less parking.

With the removal of a southside rush hour lane some new 24-hour parking spots could be added to make up for any north-side parking reductions to accommodate planting and pedestrian amenities. Transit times can still improve even with this reduction in travel lanes because private vehicles would be discouraged from using Irving as a through-route. Additionally, as discussed in the following section, queue jump lanes could greatly improve transit speed without consuming an entire block's worth of parking and pedestrian space. 

Why Irving? 

Of the nearby crosstown streets, Irving is best suited for use as a shared transit street. Kenyon already has been modified to have an excellent dedicated cycle path and Harvard, which is eastbound like Irving, has no transit line and could absorb private vehicle overflows if more of Irving was dedicated to transit and pedestrian uses (although data on past traffic calming efforts indicates that these presumed overflows usually fail to materialize as many drivers choose alternative modes of transportation or avoid traveling through the neighborhood at all). Columbia Road between Warder St and 16th St NW will also be modified as part of DDOT's crosstown bus project. Many of the recommendations for Irving also make sense for Columbia Road although Irving's proximity to the largest Elementary school in the neighborhood and direct path to the metro station make it a particularly good candidate for a shared street design.    

Capacity?

Bell street carried nearly 4,000 vehicles per day at the start of the project. This is lower than the estimated 7,786 on Irving (2019 data). A primary goal of the bus priority project should be to reduce private vehicle traffic on Irving as this is the only realistic way to both improve transit headways and also provide for a safe pedestrian environment. 

For another shared street case study that carries comparable vehicle traffic to Irving, see Chicago's first pilot shared street, Argyle Street, which is designed to carry 6,000 vehicles daily, a reasonable target for road dieting our overly congested Irving Street, whose 50 foot right of way is insufficient to safely carry more vehicles through a dense livable community. As the Congress for New Urbanism found with Argyle Street, "Despite early driver confusion and concerns that the shared space would create problems for street users, no serious accidents have been reported. That’s partly because traffic is slowed dramatically, allowing pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers to mix near a busy transit stop."

Buses Jump the Queue!

Rather than focusing on full-block dedicated lanes, we'd like DDOT to consider a shorter dedicated queue jump lane for buses and emergency vehicles (Irving is a route commonly taken by ambulances headed to Washington Hospital Center). This queue jump lane would precede intersections with signal priority. This could be combined with the shared street design or used as an alternative if a shared street plan is infeasible.

NACTO describes queue jump lanes as one of the best solutions for “signalized streets with low or moderately frequent bus routes, especially where transit operates in a right lane with high peak hour volumes but relatively low right turns.” This is a very close match with Irving Street, whose H2 and H4 routes are moderately frequent with high peak hour volumes. 

A queue jump design would also have the added benefit of increasing rather than decreasing available parking spots on Irving because the current rush hour lane sections that would not be used for a new queue jump lane could be used for 24-hour parking. This could make it easier to persuade neighbors of the value of the plan. 

Counterflow? 

Given the above mentioned severe volume-to-capacity issues on Irving, it may be necessary to take even more drastic measures to reduce private vehicle congestion. Through-traffic from Mt. Pleasant eastward could be redirected to Harvard where no bus lines currently run. Irving's through-lane could become a separated bus/emergency-vehicle-dedicated lane. Local traffic to residences and parking could be directed to a meandering lane that travels at alternating counterflow directions (west between 11th and 13th and then east between 11th and Sherman Ave, etc.) This would be a dramatic change and residents would need to be highly involved in planning. At least some neighbors, however, including myself personally, are willing to break up the throughput for private vehicles on Irving if it means faster transit and a safer pedestrian streetscape. 

Merely designating a bus priority lane during peak hours and doing nothing else. People will chronically park in the lane and towing services will not keep up (this is already the case with the rush-hour lane that is there now). Worse, impatient drivers (who are especially impatient after being bottled up at Irving and 14th) will drag race to get around each other at the 13th and 11th Street traffic lights and weave in and out of the bus lane, endangering pedestrians and cross traffic (this already happens with the current rush-hour lane and a bus lane would be no different). Cameras will not reliably deter this behavior and the perception of a wide and only paint-differentiated two-lane travel-way will increase rates of speeding. The road should be designed to physically slow private vehicles and prevent reckless driving before it injures another bystander or driver. Merely designating a lane as peak-time bus-only will do the opposite. 

24-hour dedicated bus lane without road dieting for the private vehicle lane. This solution would eliminate parking but fail to address any of the pedestrian safety issues faced by residents. Additionally, chronic noncompliance with the unseparated bus lane would lead to little improvement in actual transit headways.  

Failure to implement signal priority. Drag racing between private vehicles at the intersection is the main cause of recent accidents. Additionally, cars stopped in the rush hour lane tend to jam up traffic and stop emergency services and busses. Ambulances and firetrucks regularly become trapped behind traffic that refuses to move through red lights or otherwise get out of the way. Neighbors who happen to be on the street when this happens often take it upon themselves to persuade and direct vehicles to unblock emergency services. Any serious proposal to fix the street design should include a queue jump lane and signal priority for buses and emergency vehicles, as a smart signal will do a much better job than the adhoc work of concerned neighbors.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials, NACTO, has great resources for planners and for residents. Their design guides and case studies are the best place to learn more about shared streets.

• Shared Transit Street Design Principles

• Shared Residential Street Design Principles

• Bell Street case study

• Argyle Street case study

• Queue Jump and Signal Priority Design Principles

For official information about DDOT's progress on Irving Street visit DDOT's Crosstown Bus page.