Washington: A Step Behind in Walkability

Compared with New York, the District might lack a real Chinatown and authentic bagel shops, but all that doesn't really matter when we don't even have enough space to walk around. I realized this recently when visiting a friend in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, a mix of rowhouses, restaurants and small businesses similar to my neighborhood, Adams Morgan. But in Brooklyn, as I traveled from stores to restaurants to the subway, I felt oddly comfortable walking.

Unlike in most D.C. neighborhoods, I had plenty of room to walk, even though many people were on the sidewalks that Sunday afternoon. Everywhere we went, I noticed how wide the sidewalks were. The sidewalk on my friends' street was easily 12 feet wide, even though the street had only rowhouses on one side and a park on the other -- no businesses or bus stops.

Here in Washington, we give cars boulevards and pedestrians only inches. Near the 17th Street bars, some sidewalks are about five feet wide, hardly roomy enough to fit bustling weekend crowds.

On U Street NW near 17th Street, the sidewalk narrows to just 2 1/2 feet where there are trees, forcing large groups to do a conga line just to stay on the sidewalk. After trash collection day recently, I had to walk on the curb thanks to overturned trash cans on that stretch. Yes, I was forced into the street near some of the District's most sought-after addresses for young professionals.

A few months ago the Department of Transportation rolled out a "Pedestrian Master Plan," a multimillion-dollar proposal to repair sidewalks, relocate bus stops, reduce crossing distance at intersections and install high-tech pedestrian signals. The plan mentions increasing the size of crosswalks and medians, but a discussion of sidewalk width appears nowhere.

The remedy lies in the street. While walkers are sometimes constricted to a three-foot patch, drivers get three times as much to park on both sides of most roads. Officials could eliminate one side of parking to accommodate pedestrians in busy areas, and they could do so on a trial basis, closing one side of the street to parking and seeing whether the added space improves pedestrians' walks.

Actual construction would come later, and it would be important to consult those who live next to these cramped sidewalks, but I think many would support this change. Street parking might be convenient for some out-of-town visitors, but what homeowner really wants to hear cars starting, stopping and parallel parking all day long?

Our elected leaders urge us -- rightly so -- to use mass transit and give up our vehicles. If they are serious about making this a walkable, livable city for those of us without cars, they must ensure that pedestrians have the thing they need most: space.

-- Steve Hagenbuch

Washington