Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 21 November 2001
Let’s
support Carol Joynt’s letter last week calling for full cabinet status for
District Department of Transportation. DDOT
deserves to be at the table now deciding how best to spend precious one-time
homeland security dollars to improve our traffic management system.
Last
week DDOT accomplished a simple operational improvement that has promise in
reducing daily frustration for D.C. commuters using in-bound Canal Road in the
morning– they adjusted the traffic light timings at Foxhall/MacArthur and
Foxhall/Canal to tilt the balance towards drivers on Foxhall and MacArthur. (For
decades the split was weighted too strongly towards cars coming along Canal Rd
from Chain Bridge in Virginia or Clara Barton in Maryland). Already the morning
in-bound backup at Foxhall/MacArthur appears better, even without optimizing
synchronization between intersections.
On
November 26 DDOT kicks off a long-awaited comprehensive traffic study of the
major roads impacting the whole of the Palisades area. A contractor has been
selected to evaluate Canal, Foxhall, MacArthur and Loughboro together, rather
than piece-meal study of individual project impacts.
When
it comes to DC’s Parking Services though, our experience is not as good.
Foxhall is now suffering for the first time in memory a rash of zealotry about
enforcing parking near traffic circle intersections on Q Street, Surrey Lane and
Greenwich. In addition to missing
signage clarifying where “intersections” start, there are other signs
clearly allowing parking around the Q St circle across from the intersection
with Surrey Lane. This issue requires a thoughtful resolution – just slapping
up more signs adds to visual pollution without resolving if there is even an
intersection problem requiring parking restrictions. After all, weren’t
circles designed to safely allow cars to navigate slowly? What irks even more is
that landscaping and maintenance of these circles is done by Foxhall Village
residents, not the city.
© Bob Andrew, Foxhall
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