For Release: Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021
Contact: Nick DelleDonne,
703 929 6656
First Accident Shows Hazards of DDOT 17th St. Bike Plan
“It was like a bomb went off,” said an observer, when one of the heavy-duty Waste Management trash trucks hit a Jersey wall and a tire exploded outside the restaurant Floriana, near 17th and Q Sts., NW, Saturday afternoon, September 11. No one was injured in what is the first recorded accident since the poorly planned and installed DDOT 17th St. Bike Plan. Onlookers paused to reflect, How many accidents lay ahead and at what cost to the community?
The accident occurred when the truck emerged from the alley at about 3 miles an hour. It turned right into the narrow, 11-foot-wide traffic lane but could not avoid one of the barriers that now dot the street to protect the streateries— the obtrusive barriers are a key part of the landscape in DDOT’s bike plan. The concrete Jersey walls are affixed with steel hooks protruding from their sides so they can be hooked together to divide traffic lanes on highways. A hook caught the tire, which exploded like a bomb, seriously damaging the rim, and shoving aside the Floriana fencing.
“This accident shows just one of the many problems with DDOT’s 17th Street Bike Plan,” said Nick DelleDonne, president of the Dupont East Civic Action Association (DECAA) which is leading opposition to the Bike Plan. “It shows how wrong Councilmember Brooke Pinto was in March announcing a ‘breakthrough’ in the Plan by funneling all traffic into one narrow lane. We are renewing, yet again, our request to her and Acting Transportation Director Everett Lott to meet the community on 17th Street and see why DDOT’s Plan must be revoked.”
DECAA has organized a petition drive with a goal of 1,000 signers https://chng.it/R6Z8QLyL. Residents will be at Safeway Saturday to sign up neighbors. DECAA has organized a DC Coalition on DDOT Bike Plans to assist neighborhoods who are fighting similar intransigence from DDOT throughout the city. The Coalition’s Facebook page invites photos and stories related to DDOT Bike Plans around the city. https://www.facebook.com/groups/dccoalitiononddotbikelanes/
Here are some pictures showing the damage. One picture shows yellow bollards on both sides of the alley, a vain attempt to defend against heavy truck traffic in alleys never designed to take the traffic.
