Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 3 January 2001

The New Year has arrived but the GU dump trucks on Canal Road still appear to lack any traffic management plan! As we understand it, between 9:30 am and 3:00 pm (if their construction light ever gets operational) it will control trucks crossing the median, in place of the police officer and traffic cones now being used. After 3:00 pm trucks can use Canal Road outbound along the river, but before 9:30 am there just are no easy options, as both the lanes of Canal Road before Foxhall Road are inbound at that time of day.

How about, for the morning rush hour period, that GU adopt a route that will minimize using any narrow neighborhood streets - namely take the left turn lane to MacArthur Boulevard, then right onto Reservoir Road and right again on Foxhall Road? This will keep them from using narrow Q Street (shared with Metro buses, a preschool and an elementary school) to accomplish their necessary turn around. It also means all truck turns will be controlled by traffic lights using dedicated turn lanes.

In order to shorten their run, trucks have been seen attempting to turn around by backing into Volta Place off Foxhall Road, or using the circle in the private drive known as Laverock Place off MacArthur Boulevard. While Cherry Hill Construction have attempted to have supervisors penalize this kind of behavior, it would really help if GU were to
communicate plainly about their approach to dump truck traffic management on their website dedicated to the S/W Quad.

© Bob Andrew, Foxhall