u/districtofcyclists

An hour or so ago, I noticed two vehicles double parked downtown, virtually blocking the entire street. Thirty or so minutes later, they were both still there. Other vehicles would come up behind them and honk and not a single fck was given. Because I like to waste time doing pointless things, I filed a 311 report that specified the problem and invited an enforcement officer to come by and try to instill a modicum of traffic order on this particular block. The officer apparently came to the location, observed the two vehicles that were apparently still double parked an hour or so later, and decided that s/he could not issue a ticket because the signage apparently sends conflicting signals about the legality of parking in the middle of the fcking roadway. Someone please make sense of this for me. But forgive me if I have no head left because the state of DC’s public safety apparatus has just completely blown my mind.

The Washington Post has an article (https://wapo.st/4wjyYGG) out this morning about the forthcoming destruction of the Foundry Branch Trolley Trestle (a bridge built in 1896 for trolleys / trams / streetcars / light rail traveling from the Car Barn in Georgetown [next to the Exorcist Steps] to Glen Echo in Maryland and back).

The Post quotes many of the key players in efforts to save the bridge, fix it up, integrate it into a shared use path that pedestrians and cyclists could use to travel between Georgetown and the Palisades. However, it still manages to get a key parts of the story very wrong.

In particular, the Post article fails to even mention the one person who, in my view, dealt the death blow to efforts to save the bridge: current DDOT Director Sharon Kershbaum.

Even before Kershbaum was even confirmed, she declared - apparently with little factual basis - that the bridge could not be saved and should be torn down ASAP.

To his credit, Ward 3 council member, Matt Frumin, thought it might be worth getting an expert opinion first and managed to insert money into the DC budget for DDOT to commission a study on whether the bridge was salvageable and what it would cost to restore it.

But despite being in the DC budget for at least a couple of years, DDOT never commissioned the study that the Council had mandated. Why? Well, I’d venture that Kershbaum didn’t even want to risk having an assessment on the record that contradicted the position she’d already staked out.

The Washington Post article conflates this study that didn’t happen with one that was completed back in 2019 (long before Kershbaum took over DDOT) that did not examine the state of the bridge but rather assessed the general feasibility of converting the right-of-way of the old Palisades Trolley Trail - which is now effectively wasteland - into a shared use path that would run from Georgetown University to the Palisades.

That study indicated that the rehabilitation was viable, subject to the negotiation of some jurisdictional issues that may require a few land swaps etc. (such as the one the DC government and NPS recently did with the Georgetown boat houses).

What ultimately stopped DDOT from moving forward circa 2019 with rehabbing the Palisades Trolley Trail (including, if feasible, restoring the Trolley Trestle) into something useful for city residents was three things.

First, a handful of resident of Sherier Pl NW who have more or less annexed portions of the trail for their own backyards and didn’t like the idea of public space being used by members of the public launched a cacophonous and deceptive “Save Don’t Pave” campaign against the upgrading of the trolley trail. At least one member of this anti-trail coalition was reportedly well connected in the city government.

Second, one particular member of the Georgetown University administration (who has since moved on to other ventures) apparently harbored a major grudge against micro-mobility and did whatever he could to dissuade DDOT from moving forward with fixing up the trolley trail. In one letter to DDOT, he went so far as to argue tha the trail would be unacceptable to the university because it would damage the aesthetics of the (appalling ugly) entrance from Canal Rd. Never mind of course that the only practical alternative for pedestrians and cyclists traveling from his university to the Foxhall and Palisades neighborhood - the sidewalk along Canal Rd - is a death trap.

Third and finally, Ward 3 council-member Mary Cheh could never be bothered to call a spade a spade, never took issue with the total crap that was being spread around by the “Save Don’t Pave” campaign, had no interest whatsoever in ruffling any feathers with her pals in the Georgetown University administration, and thus was completely AWOL when it came to advocating for the trail and trestle rehabilitation with DDOT.

The lesson is, as it usually is, that the public interest is never much of a match for a coterie of rich entitled people with a lot of time on their hands.