Is ANC 4C going through the motions or will they actually take community input? (Community Opinion)
/Grant Circle (Google Earth)
by Alexis Gutierrez
Opinion
As Petworth News covered in November 2023, DDOT is contemplating a redesign of Grant Circle again. The ANC has the opportunity to bring the community together around a proposal to make Grant Circle and adjoining streets safer or fracture it.
The DDOT proposal is extensive, including reducing the number of lanes of traffic, removing 24 or more parking spaces, adding a protected bike lane and changing the direction of traffic on 5th street and Illinois south of the circle.
All of the residents, the two churches and the daycare and charter school that they host respectively as well as the streets that feed into Grant Circle will be impacted by the proposed changes.
While the ANC held a community meeting in November 2023, they held it during the time of prayer services at St. Gabriel’s Church and without sufficient notification of several of those impacted. The ANC worked with St. Gabriel’s to hold a second meeting in December with DDOT officials present. From the get go, the meeting was contentious as it was clear that ANC Commissioner Brittany Kademian and DDOT officials did not understand the significance of the impact to the church and residents. While some spoke in strong support of the proposal, many raised the impact to residents and the Churches of losing parking would be substantial. Several of the residents have small children and would have to park on other blocks and walk their kids home across very busy streets instead of parking in front of their houses. One raised the safety issue of recently having to park a block away and having been followed home, attacked and her car stolen.
St. Gabriel members pointed out that funerals regularly take place during the week and that the church doesn’t have access to their parking lot, as Center City Charter School uses it during the days. It was unclear in the current plan where the hearse and funeral goers would park. Further, many long-time parishioners participate in church activities during the week and park on the street in front of the church, especially those who have mobility issues and can’t walk long distances. Residents in and around the circle raised the fact that Amazon, Fedex and other delivery services would not have a clear place to pull in under the proposal and would block traffic on the Circle in areas where it would go down to one lane. In addition, where delivery drivers can’t pull in front of a resident, it is a regular experience of them stopping all traffic on the street. When that street is New Hampshire Ave, that consequence is significant.
Meeting participants also pointed out that the last time DDOT tried to reduce Sherman Circle to one lane, drivers started cutting through alleys since traffic was so backed up in the neighborhood. Many residents expressed concern that DDOT did not hold meetings to hear resident’s concerns before drafting the proposal. After a fiery back and forth between DDOT officials and participants, it was requested that the ANC hold on furthering any resolution until workshops could be held to refine the proposal. The ANC agreed to delay deliberation on the proposal and hold another meeting.
Last week that meeting was held but was not advertised as broadly as the last meeting. ANC 4C Commission Chair Karen Livingston came to facilitate the meeting with the DDOT community liaison, but none of the DDOT engineers were present. Instead of a workshop to discuss ways to refine the proposal, Chair Livingston opened the floor up to the 40 community members present and everyone reiterated what they said to ANC Commissioner Brittany Kademian.
At the end of the 90-minute meeting, Livingston was asked what the ANC would do now. To the surprise and disbelief of many present she said that the ANC would support the DDOT proposal, making some recommendations on the Illinois and 5th Street portions of the proposal but not the larger concerns about reducing parking and traffic lanes on Grant Circle. She noted that injuries and fatalities on the Circle and those wanting to use Grant Circle Park needed to be considered. She also cited an ANC survey that 120 residents answered supporting the proposal, though none of the 40 residents at the meeting had ever seen, nor have the results been shared publicly on Petworth News or other neighborhood outlets.
(Editor’s Note: Petworth News received the results of the survey on February 10th after learning about it and inquiring with the ANC, but was previously unaware of the existence of the survey until this week.)
Everyone at the meeting agreed safety improvements are needed on Grant Circle, but many disagreed that the DDOT proposal would resolve the speeding and worried the pedestrian issues would just be pushed to other blocks who would experience increased traffic. Participants expressed frustration that they had wasted their time for a window dressing exercise by the ANC Chair, especially since they had to repeat again what they had said to Commissioner Kademain and no DDOT engineers were present. Chair Livingston said that the ANC needed to take advantage of the window to comment on the proposal. When participants asked what that meant and whether the project was even funded, the DDOT representative said there was no funding for the project and the DDOT is already looking at changes to the proposal including eliminating the bus stops in Grant Circle all together.
If DDOT is already looking at changes to this proposal, it is mind-boggling that the ANC would not set up a series of meetings with DDOT, MPD and the community to look at all the proposals and get community feedback before passing a resolution.
Further, participants asked the ANC to delay a decision on a resolution since this month’s ANC meeting falls on Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. The Chair said that was not possible.
Today, after significant pleading from a long-standing community resident, three ANC commissioners released the draft resolution. While I am grateful that the ANC Commissioners finally heeded the advice of community members to be more transparent, the proposal continues to fall short and does not sincerely address the concerns of those most impacted by the DDOT proposal.
First, the ANC resolution continues to support reducing Grant Circle from two lanes to one lane. Community members at the December and February meetings raised the concern that this would push significant traffic onto Webster, Varnum, Upshur and 5th, much narrower streets that have finally gotten to an equilibrium after a decade of DDOT tinkering with traffic direction, speed tables, lights and more.
In addition, reducing Grant Circle from two lanes to one lane would require the churches and home owners around the circle to give up parking spaces. While everyone wants the speeding and reckless driving to stop, the homeowners and Churches of the circle are not the perpetrators of the problem yet will face reduction in property values and loss of easy and safe access to their homes with small children or aging residents. The resolution also supports the idea of a protected bike lane. While the idea of separating drivers and cyclists is a good one, there are already multiple examples of lack of parking in the circle leading to blockages of the existing bike lane (e.g. at the corner of the Church/daycare.)
Finally, the ANC commissioners and DDOT seem not to have noticed what the existing traffic around Grant Circle and its arteries are like between 730-930 am every morning and again at rush hour. 5th and Illinois are regularly blocked two to three blocks with cars waiting to enter Grant Circle to get downtown. Nothing in the current DDOT proposal explains where this volume of traffic will go. DDOT, MPD and ANC need to hit the reset and more thoughtful engage with all the impacted communities to identify all ranges of possibilities from increased police enforcement, no parking in some parts of the circle at certain times of the day, increased signage, raised crosswalks and more. Finally, whatever is designed will have impacts that radiate throughout Petworth and the scope of the project must be more comprehensive and include Illinois from Sherman to Rock Creek Church, Webster, Varnum, Upshur and Taylor.
ANC 4C is repeating history. Instead of putting together community workshops to refine the proposal, including expanding the coverage of the proposal, they risk losing relevance to the community if a reset does not take place. Everyone wants a safer Grant Circle, but the DDOT proposal was not designed by the community for the community.
The eyes are on ANC 4C this week to see if they will hit reset on this issue or not. The relevance of the ANC as a community body is at stake, as many participants made it clear that the ANC can either work with the community or the community will work around them.
2/13/24 Editor’s Note: The headline was updated to reflect this is a community-supplied opinion article and not a Petworth News Editorial opinion article.
Update 2/14/24: ANC 4C approved the resolution at their monthly meeting.
Thanks to all the neighbors who attended our @ANC4C meeting tonight to provide input to the Grant Circle Traffic Safety resolution! Really appreciate all those who commented or emailed their support 🙌 @petworthdcnews @CMLewisGeorgeW4 https://t.co/bhurqiUmMA
— Brittany Kademian ANC 4C05 (@kademian87) February 15, 2024
