The D.C. Council is expected to decide the fate Tuesday of a long-planned makeover of K Street NW, weighing whether to defund the project in defiance of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).
The vote will come as the nation’s capital and cities across the country are wrestling with the best path forward after the pandemic reshaped transportation networks and central business districts. The D.C. project enjoyed widespread support before the pandemic, but decreased transit usage and reduced office occupancy have ushered in a fresh round of scrutiny.
The council’s Transportation Committee in late April recommended shifting $115 million earmarked for the project to a council-backed program that would make Metrobus free, a proposal that Bowser opposes. The fare-free program is being delayed at Metro’s request, but some council leaders say they favor using the K Street project’s funding for other city priorities.
“That project is still not ready to move forward, and it should not,” said Transportation Committee Chairman Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who spearheaded shifting the K Street money to the fare-free bus program.
The office of Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) declined to comment on whether he will opt to fund the transit way ahead of unveiling his budget Monday. He acknowledged in recent days that the free-bus program will need to wait at least a year, but said he had not determined whether to restore money to K Street or allocate it elsewhere. He said the transit way should be delayed until officials come up with a new design.
The council is scheduled to take its first budget vote Tuesday, but changes can be made to the spending plan ahead of a second vote at the end of the month.
The K Street Transitway, which would remake downtown’s busiest corridor between 12th and 21st streets NW, is in its final design phase and was touted as a way to alleviate traffic congestion for buses while allowing for faster and more frequent service downtown. The $123 million project came under fire last month when the council began to scrutinize Bowser’s budget and learned that bike lanes were being removed. The city settled on the change after meetings with businesses along the corridor raised concerns about poor access for parking and deliveries.
Planners are working on changes to the design, transportation director Everett Lott told council members last month.
The removal of the bike infrastructure, which had been part of the project for years, sparked protest among bike groups and road safety advocates. Council members also have cited flaws with the design, while some have said the pandemic and changed commuter patterns during a shift to telework have made the project less relevant. The council has proposed leaving $1 million in the budget for transit way design work to continue and to possibly revamp the idea in the future.
Several council members say money for the K Street project should be used elsewhere.
Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) tweeted that Mendelson has an opportunity to use the money to “better meet residents’ basic needs.” Allen said he has asked Mendelson to use the money to restore D.C. Circulator bus routes the mayor has put on the chopping block, as well as on road safety initiatives. Council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) said the funding should support housing programs.
“Transportation needs will be different in 2030 than they were in 2020,” White said. “Let’s plan for the future of downtown, and invest in housing and homelessness prevention so that we don’t waste money on a project that doesn’t fit the future or end up with a new transit way lined with tent encampments.”
Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) said she supports pausing the K Street project to give planners time to revise the design and address community concerns. But she said revisions shouldn’t take another year — on top of three years already spent on design work — and she doesn’t support pulling all funds from the project. Finding the money in the future, she said, “will just be incredibly difficult.”
Under the current plan, bus lanes — one in each direction — would be built in the center of K Street, providing dedicated space for more than a dozen bus routes that would be separated from other traffic. The corridor carried about 20,000 transit users daily before the pandemic, according to DDOT.
The proposed redesign of the mile-long corridor would eliminate K Street’s decades-old service roads, which transportation officials say confuse motorists, slow traffic and leave pedestrians scrambling between medians. The project also would include improvements to crosswalks and new landscaping. The city was ready to put the project out for bid this year.
Along K Street, the transit way would traverse a high-density commercial district abutting three federal parks: Farragut Square, McPherson Square and Franklin Park. The corridor also has high demand for truck deliveries and space for passengers to enter and exit vehicles.
Lott said last month the city was eliminating the one-way cycle tracks that had been part of the plan. Instead, he said, the city is looking to improve the bike lane one block north on L Street NW. Six weeks earlier, Lott had told the council the design had been completed and the project was on track with a center busway, a cycle track in each direction and pedestrian improvements.
“We’re really excited this project is still moving forward,” he said at the time. “It is going to transform the whole corridor.” DDOT did not respond to multiple inquiries in recent days about the project.
Jeremiah Lowery, advocacy director at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, said removal of the bike lanes came as an unpleasant surprise. While he said improvements to the L Street bike lane are welcomed, removing the bike infrastructure from K Street is not a trade-off, he said.
“Over the last few years they have been going around town promoting this project, talking about the bike lane, only to drop it at the 11th hour,” he said. “This game DDOT is playing of ‘pick and choose’ on which street you want to be safe — that’s not a good thing.”
As Bowser blasted the council’s funding move as a “downtown killer” earlier this month, Lott said that moving the bike lane to L Street was part of a compromise. Lott also has cited pressure from the business community to include more space for parking, drop-off and pickups, and deliveries.
Gerren G. Price, chief executive of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, said while the business community has raised concern over the years about aspects of the project before eventually backing the plans, he was not aware of anyone “explicitly asking for the bike lanes to be removed.” He said concerns have been about a three-year construction period and the lack of vehicle access to buildings.
A rendering Lott tweeted this month shows a more car-centric corridor, one that critics say goes against the District’s vision for a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly city. The image shows seven car lanes, an expansion from the design finalized in December that sketched five car lanes, including a parking lane.
“That’s more lanes of traffic than 295, Route 50, or any of our arterial streets,” Allen said. “They’re putting in a K Street freeway. That’s not what we need.”
Bowser earlier this month criticized the council for targeting the K Street project.
“I don’t think anybody cares about the bike lane at the Wilson Building,” she said. “Don’t make this about bike lanes.”
Price said it’s unfortunate the project is stuck while “under siege.” Holding back the project, he said, would threaten the future of the corridor and downtown.
“Current conditions on K Street are really not viable and frankly the infrastructure is crumbling. We have major issues around traffic congestion,” he said. “Please restore the funding to this project.”