LRSP is a tool being used to provide housing for District residents with extremely low incomes, including those with special needs. It does so by preserving and producing affordable housing, and by providing direct rental assistance in the form of vouchers.
Category: District of Columbia
DC AHA Briefing: Zoning for Housing Choices
After decades of decline, DC is growing rapidly. Last year, the city added 13,022 residents. Housing permits in the last few years have jumped — 3,200-4,600 units/year for 2011 to 2013, up from the peak of 2,800 in 2005.
DC AHA Briefing: Shared Equity – Ensuring DC homeownership benefits residents
Shared equity defined: A shared equity approach balances two competing but valid public objectives in affordable homeownership programs: wealth creation and preservation of housing affordability.
DC AHA Briefing: Public Land Dispositions
Over the last decade, DC has lost half of its low-cost rental units and more and more residents now pay more than 50 percent of the income on housing—a severe burden that leaves them more vulnerable to homelessness.
DC AHA Briefing: New Communities Program
The Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development administers NCP. NCP is the District’s major redevelopment initiative slated to re-develop four low-income public housing complexes in the following neighborhoods:
DC AHA Briefing: Commercial Linkage Program
Commercial linkage programs charge large commercial developments one-time fees which help pay for the affordable housing needed by the people employed by commercial developments. The cities of Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle as well as a number of Washington area suburban jurisdictions collect linkage fees from commercial developments that meet or exceed significant size thresholds. These fees are charged on a per square foot basis.
DC AHA Briefing: Accessible Housing for People with Disabilities
2010 marked the 20th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, an event that many in the disability community hoped would signify the beginning of full integration into all areas of life and society for people with disabilities. Indeed, there are more people with disabilities living alongside their able bodied neighbors than ever before. Unfortunately, the amount and quality of accessible housing in the nation’s capital still does not adequately address the need.
TPB Testimony re: the 2015 to 2040 Constrained Long Range Plan
Thank you. My name is Kelly Blynn, and I am the Next Generation of Transit organizer for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. I came to the Coalition after five years at the climate organization 350.org and several years of youth and student organizing on climate change. Needless to say, I see climate change as the defining issue for my generation, and it motivates me to work for walkable, transit-accessible communities that we know enable people to live lower carbon lifestyles.
Transit advocate backs bus-only lane as traffic solution for D.C.’s busy 16th Street route
Sixteenth Street buses are squeezing out all the capacity they can under current conditions. There’s no more room to add additional capacity for cars to the road without harming neighborhoods adjacent to 16th Street NW (nor is driving an option for many residents along 16th Street anyway).
Yet our region continues to grow, and more people need to commute to downtown D.C. from D.C. and Silver Spring neighborhoods all along the corridor. What are we going to do to address that?
The 16th Street bus lanes proposal, in which the current reversible rush-hour lane from Arkansas Avenue NW to downtown would be transformed into a dedicated bus lane, is our best option. With the rush-hour bus lane, we would increase our capacity to move the greatest number of people through this important corridor and with the least disruption to commuters using different transportation modes.
A 2013 feasibility study for the District Department of Transportation showed that creating a bus lane in that stretch of 16th Street would still leave two lanes for cars and only slightly increase delays. Meanwhile, buses, which move half of rush-hour travelers on 16th Street, would move 30 percent faster with a dedicated lane and, most important, would increase capacity for [moving people through the corridor] by 10 percent.
All of this can be done without sacrificing any parking spaces or narrowing 16th Street to one lane for cars in the peak direction south of U Street NW, as the letter-writer in your column suggests.
The same 50-foot right-of-way along this corridor has sufficient room south of U Street to be restriped for three travel lanes in the peak direction during rush hour, and to allow the non-peak direction to remain as it is — with one parking lane and one travel lane. Traffic volume is not as high south of U Street as it is to the north, where street parking isn’t allowed during rush hour in either direction.
As to your other points about bringing signal prioritization to the corridor and increasing the number of Metro supervisors along 16th Street to improve the efficiency of bus spacing, we agree, but it’s not enough.
Buses get stuck in traffic and are thrown off their schedules for two big reasons: They are stopped at red lights, and they are held back from moving through intersections because there are a bunch of cars in front of them.
Dedicated bus lanes free up buses from being stuck behind a line of cars trying to get through an intersection, and signal priority gets the bus through the intersection. Together, bus lanes and signal priority do more than the benefits they offer individually to get buses moving.
When we can do this with a marginal effect on traffic congestion, but a real increase in overall capacity, it’s a win for everyone.
What should be our next move? Do the detailed evaluations, approvals and plans to assess and implement a bus lane. DDOT should also expedite implementation of transit-signal priority, which is scheduled to be operating in the next two years.
The current status of the bottled-up transit service on 16th Street leaves more than half of the corridor’s commuters with a substandard option that is not only unacceptable, but also fixable. Why would we be so biased against effective solutions to make a corridor work for a majority of its travelers?
Cheryl Cort, policy director, Coalition for Smarter Growth
DG: A woman who lived at 16th and U streets in the late 1980s told me the Metrobuses were referred to as the “Banana Bus Lines,” because they always arrived in bunches. Many of today’s riders who try to board in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhoods and farther south say that’s the most predictable part of the rush-hour bus service.
But to really succeed, a transit service needs the schedules to be predictable, not the bus bunching and crowding.
Metro and the District Department of Transportation consider 16th Street part of a regional bus priority corridor network, but DDOT has not yet presented an official proposal for bus-only lanes on 16th Street.
Maryland-to-D.C. commuters and D.C. residents along the corridor need to see such a proposal to make a proper evaluation. DDOT’s abortive experience with reconfiguring Wisconsin Avenue NW highlights some of the difficulties in translating what looks good on a map into what works for commuters in rush-hour traffic.
Before bus lanes arrive on 16th Street, drivers and bus riders alike need to know the District will be committed to enforcing new rules on lane use, parking and turning.
Bus-only lanes in an urban core are a block-by-block experience in engineering and transportation politics. If 16th Street becomes an initial experience, it needs to be a good one. Otherwise it could poison the environment for other transit improvements.
At 16th Street NW, a divisive bus-lane proposal
Read the original article at Washington Post >>
“Public transportation needs to supersede the convenience of suburban commuters,” said Sarah Spurgeon, an attorney who rides the S Line buses from her home near U Street. “There is just so much traffic coming from the suburbs down 16th . . . we need to focus on good transportation within the city center.”
Residents have sent letters and spoken at public meetings in support of the proposal. They say the city should have bus lanes, just as it has bike lanes, and cite a District Department of Transportation study recommending a bus lane in the corridor. Smart-growth advocates are gathering signatures in support of the effort. And Metro says a bus lane is necessary if it is to provide dependable service.
“Unless you address the congestion problem that the buses are facing, nothing is going to change,” said Kishan Putta, a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for Dupont Circle and a bus user who lives near 16th and R streets.
Bus lanes that take away a lane for regular traffic are generally not popular, but transportation officials are increasingly viewing them as critical to comprehensive transit networks. Arlington County and the city of Alexandria are set to open the region’s first bus-only lanes this year. The five-mile stretch connecting the Braddock Road and Crystal City Metro stations will offer traffic-free bus travel, frequent service and off-board payment. Montgomery County is studying an ambitious plan to build a system of express bus lanes. And in the District, Metro and DDOT also are exploring bus-only lanes along H and I streets NW.
Increasing ridership in the 16th Street corridor warrants consideration of a dedicated lane, said Jim Hamre, director of bus planning for Metro.
Metro has added buses to the corridor and in 2009 launched a limited-stop bus route. But as service has increased, so has demand.
Metrobus carries about 50 percent of the people traveling 16th Street from Silver Spring to downtown D.C. each morning, yet buses comprise only 3 percent of the vehicles traveling the roadway, Metro said. They get stuck in traffic, sometimes traveling at speeds of less than 10 miles per hour, according to the agency.
No room for more
By the time the bus arrived at the 16th and U streets stop one morning last week, bodies were squeezed up against the exit doors. A glimpse up 16th Street showed a cluster of buses slowly making its way through heavy traffic.
“You wait a long time and see many, many buses pass by,” Catherine Depret said as she and her 22-month-old son waited at 16th and Corcoran for a bus to get him to day care. On a good morning, they might wait 15 minutes. On a bad day, she is forced to take a cab.
When Depret arrived at the stop at 8:30 a.m., an S4 bus had just left. Three other people were waiting at the stop. At 8:36, an approaching S2 stops a few yards away from the bus shelter, and a woman and a child get off. The bus takes off, leaving behind a dozen people.
By 8:40, four crowded buses have passed by without stopping. One woman starts walking west toward Dupont Circle. A man begins to head south toward the White House.
“When it’s cold or raining, it’s really not fun, especially if you see four, five or even six buses go by,” Depret said.
A fifth bus arrives at 8:46, with limited standing room, and those remaining at the stop crowd on.
Metrobus ridership in the corridor has increased 25 percent in the past four years, Metro said, and the agency expects that trend to continue as people move back to the city, particularly to areas such as Columbia Heights and Dupont Circle. The S Line carries more than 20,000 passengers daily — an average of 4,237 during the morning rush hour alone.
Since the launch of the limited-stop S9, Metro has extended the S9 service from 7 to 9:30 p.m. In 2012, larger buses were added to the night runs to meet the demands of workers who often were passed up by full buses after 10 p.m. Last year, Metro added nine morning S2 trips, starting at Harvard Street, to ease crowding in the southern portion of the corridor. Longer buses have been shifted from the Georgia Avenue Line to increase capacity. And this month, Metro started running emergency buses on the route when people are left behind by crowded buses.
“Bus lanes will help,” Hamre said.
Considering the trade-offs
But some riders say traffic congestion isn’t the problem. They say there simply aren’t enough buses.
“There aren’t enough buses to pick up everyone,” said Ronnie J. Kweller, who lives just south of U Street. “Watching a full bus pass by in a dedicated lane does not help anyone get where they need to go.”
Kweller said she also worries about the possibility of a bus lane taking away parking in an area where it is already tight. “It will be a real hardship to people who have cars and need to park them safely, lawfully and relatively close to home,” she said.
The impact on parking and car lanes will be studied if the city decides to officially consider the idea, said Sam Zimbabwe, associate director for policy and planning at DDOT. The department’s master plan, MoveDC, scheduled for release this spring, is expected to include the transit lane alternative for 16th Street.
“You couldn’t just add a bus lane without any changes. You will need to be taking a car lane or parking. There are some trade-offs in there,” Zimbabwe said. But, he said, “we are probably years away from having a dedicated bus lane on 16th Street.”
The southern portion of the corridor, in particular, presents challenges because of its two- lane configuration. A stretch in the central part of the corridor already has an alternative lane, so during the morning rush three lanes are southbound. If a bus lane were to be designated, the area would still have two lanes for general traffic.
A 2013 DDOT study of the corridor recommends a peak-hour transit lane extending 2.7 miles between Arkansas Avenue and H Street NW. The bus lane has potential to increase transit travel speeds by 30 percent and accommodate up to a 10 percent increase in ridership, the report says. But it also would affect parking, currently permitted on portions of 16th Street NW during peak periods, and could create more vehicular delays at some of the busiest intersections, according to the report.
Drivers dealing with an already bad commute would suffer more with a bus-only lane, AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman Lon Anderson said.
“Sixteenth Street is a mess, but for them to suggest that it is okay to take a lane and dedicate it to buses . . . is not an acceptable solution,” he said. “I don’t think the cars hold up the buses particularly. Everybody moves along about the same speed. We are all stuck in it together.”
A better solution, Anderson said, would be fast-tracking Metro’s plan for a traffic signal priority program at 16th Street that would allow buses the green light, which could speed bus travel.
Although transit advocates agree the signal initiative is part of the solution, they say freeing the buses from the general traffic will get them moving faster and allow them to make more trips. Metro already has 42 bus trips in the corridor in the 8 a.m. hour. That’s one bus every 85 seconds, more than the minimum required for a successful bus lane, officials say.
“We are seeing folks using all the available space on those buses,” Hamre said. “At the current rate of growth, we need something else.”