“Dear PoPville,
John McCormack Rd. NE, near Catholic University, has been changed from 2 ways to 1 way without proper signage and no notice that I am aware of. The avenue has become a one-way towards Michigan Ave. NE. There is no signage until the merge, which has caused drivers to run over the white street markers in order to enter Michigan Ave.NE; Read More
“Dear PoPville,
On one end of Alaska Ave in NW DC, it intersects 16th St; on the other, it briefly merges with Kalmia Rd, then intersects Georgia Ave. there are arrows painted at each of these two ends–and i’ve tried to draw what they look like. Over the past few years I’ve asked my neighbors what those painted arrows on Kalmia mean, and I’ve gotten a variety of answers. how do you interpret them? Read More
“Dear PoPville,
Can we please discuss the terrible intersection design at Georgia Ave and Park Rd NW? The signage and signals make it so unclear what drivers should do and I witness daily road rage incidents because of it.
Are drivers supposed to come to a complete stop after turning onto Georgia Ave since they are immediately presented with a red light and you typically aren’t allowed to turn left across traffic on a red? Some drivers come to an immediate stop once they turn right onto Georgia Ave, which angers drivers behind them, and I’ve seen some of those angry drivers speed around the stopped cars Read More
“Dear PoPville,
Anyone who has ever driven down Park Rd NW knows there is a chronic back up between 14 and 16 St NW due to the Pine St NW light. The light changes in 9 seconds (I’m not joking!!) and causes a ridiculous back up. How can we have it changed to a different time to promote traffic flow?!
Cam sends around 8:40 this morning: “Every day I think to myself the intersection of Massachusetts, L, and 11th Streets is the worst intersection I’ve ever seen. Surprise, accident there this morning”
“Dear PoPville,
Another Capitol Hill oddity is right off Stanton Park. The right turn off of C St NE: is it two turn lanes divided by a bike lane, or just one lane? If you want to turn right onto 6th Street NE and then an immediate left onto Maryland (see the red dashed line below), which lane should you turn from? Read More
14th and U Street, NW
“Dear PoPville,
Wondering if you know what’s happening at 14th and U. We used to have a turn signal there. It was removed a while back.
Now there is regularly a police officer there directing traffic. Last Saturday, I was out running errands by foot. The police officer was YELLING at pedestrians not to cross, even when we had the light, so that she could let cars turn left. It wasn’t particularly backed up. It meant that a lot of people were confused about whether they could cross and would then try to run while she was letting people go. It was a hot mess.
This is a highly trafficked pedestrian area. Why is DDOT prioritizing car traffic there? If they want people to cross safely and drivers to turn left safely, this is not a good solution. Maybe we need that fancy intersection they have in Chinatown.” Ed. Note: There’s also a barnes dance crossing in Columbia Heights. Not a bad idea here!
“Dear PoPville,
Many readers probably know that the cross walk on R st NW and Florida is already not great to begin with — Florida is a busy street and the left turning cars get confused by the diagonal intersection. There’s only one crosswalk instead of two to cross on R, and the pedestrian light only turns to walk if you push the button. If you don’t push the button, the walk sign never comes on, and the green traffic light stays on for only about half the time it would otherwise, so there’s not enough time to cross the street.
About a week ago or so, the crosswalk button got stuck in the “on” position, and now it doesn’t seem to be triggering the walk signal at all. So it’s now impossible to get a crosswalk light to cross Florida. I’ve been running across when the R St traffic light turns green, but only get about halfway across the street by the time it turns yellow.
I wrote to 311 and haven’t heard back. I hope you can bring attention to this dangerous traffic situation!“
“Dear PoPville,
I was recently in a car accident in a very confusing and crappy intersection in dc (as we all know street signs around here aren’t always the clearest) (see the many stories on popville re: parking and other street signs).
The intersection in question is the “round about” from Montana ave heading south towards West Virginia ave and the exit towards Montana ave SE. In this same “round about,” and the reason for the quotations, is that there is also New York ave running through the middle of that roundabout (see below images).
So please imagine with me that you are at the red light on Montana ave and New York ave (see image below – between these two arrows). Yes, the map is backwards bc google maps puts everything headed north and the incident in question happened heading south. So I reversed it!
Right above the red light there is this street sign above those *two* lanes of traffic.
Seeing as there is no street names correlating to the arrows, as we all well know that dc has done with other traffic circles, one would safely assume a few things: a) the inside lane can go left and straight *only*; b) the outside lane can go right and straight *only*; c) the straight for those two lanes is the same straight, since the arrow isn’t a different size or doesn’t veer off sooner, thus the “straight” is in reference to *continuing* straight from Montana all the way through back onto Montana; d) the left for the inside lane could be argued to either turn left at the inside of the roundabout or to turn left directly at the light onto New York; e) the right for the outside lane is to exit onto West Virginia ave, and is the only legal way for a car to exit onto West Virginia ave; f) the right for the outside lane is not to turn an immediate right onto New York ave as there are street signs directly in front of that lane that say “no right turn” (see below) and there is a separate lane that veered off the circle to exit Montana to New York ave earlier, well before the posted sign above regarding the two lanes. Okay phew!
Now that we’ve cleared up all the possibilities, and explained how entirely f’in confusing this intersection is, let me explain what happened.
Myself and another driver were at the light on Montana ave, heading south, towards Montana ave. I was in the outside lane, she was in the inside lane. Right as we approached the exit for West Virginia ave, the other driver realized she needed to exit (or was supposed to exit and forgot) and tboned me on my drivers rear side. Read More
via google maps
“Dear PoPville,
I wanted to alert you to a potential traffic issue I’ve been noticing more than more. There’s a very weird intersection around the southwest corner of Union Station, where the cabs/cars/buses that have dropped off people in the front come out to either Mass Ave (turning left or right) or going straight down E Street. If you look at the map, though, there’s also a small lane that comes out of First Street NE. The traffic lights are not well angled, so when the Union Station lane gets the red light, the First Street lane gets green, but I’ve seen several times cars (cabs in particular) from Union Station mistaking the second green as theirs, and driving out. What’s worse is that there are generally a lot of bicyclists in the First Street lane, and I worry eventually someone will get hit.”
