This has to be the most corrupt 🚲land grab in DC history. They want to remove parking & at least one travel lane on Conn Ave, even though the data shows that there are 50,000% more daily 🚘 than 🚴♂️ in NON-WINTER months.
All for two 🚴♂️ crashes per YEAR on Ward 3’s busiest road.
Let’s #GetToKnowYourANC on this project. David recognizes how unpopular removing parking from his district will be, but pushes for it anyway cuz he loves to ride his 🚲. Did we mention his income comes from urbanism & that his fave 📺 shows are about spies trying to destroy 🇺🇸?
What’s that? An urbanist consultant/developer 🚴 on the board of GGW wants to make wholesale changes in the neighborhood he‘s lived in less than a year? Yep, meet #GetToKnowYourANC Wall.
How dare we question the profit motives of a man whose firm helped DDOT plan this nightmare!
Next we have #GetToKnowYourANC Nemeth. She “never” rides 🚲, yet feels the only “acceptable” answer is to remove parking for 🚴♀️ lanes on Conn Ave... despite what she said about parking when she first ran... & despite how it‘ll kill businesses she wants to “do all (she) can” for.
Two unopposed future #GetToKnowYourANC with similar pedigrees to showcase. Both Buechner & Chang are data analysts who have chosen to ignore numbers that clearly scream how few cycles use Conn Ave (or anywhere else for that matter). Buechner ❤️🚴; Chang makes no sense at all.
Last #GetToKnowYourANC on this issue, for now. This Fink literally works for the mayor, not his community. Pic 2 says it all. But the icing on the 🍰 comes when he says his #1 goal is to support local small biz... only to offer these stores up to his 🚴♀️ demons the very next day!
Anyone else think it’s weird that the area business orgs didn’t blare the alarm to the businesses they supposedly represent? I asked almost 75 retail managers/owners if they knew they might lose street parking & MAYBE two of them said they’d heard. How is this possible? 💰& ♻️🚴.
For posterity.
Asked the journalistic outlet for this project area to cover the story. They have ignored & dodged it. When pressed, they ignore it some more. Yet they somehow have time to concurrently cover the urbanist side of the story. #TrollMuch
Now we know why. The editor is an activist.
When the coordinator of Small Biz Dev willfully ignores the deleterious effect of parking removal (despite it being in her mandate), how can stores trust BIDs reliant on her dept’s grants will go to bat for them? Explains why stores had no idea about project.
Bonus: 🚴♂️subterfuge
Thanks to the corrupt circular feedback loop created by DDOT bankrolling WABA so WABA can pester DDOT, 🚴 (& their dozens of paid employees) do this all year. On the flip side, regular citizens must band together & start from scratch on a singular project. The process is rigged.
Update: knowing the numbers aren’t on their side, DDOT delays public meeting so they can grab new numbers that’ll frame their case in 😷 world.
They still won’t contact most stores directly; only thru survey we have to forward that keeps 🚘 data qualitative & lumps🚶♂️🚴 together.
So Ward Councilmember Cheh had her CAR stolen yesterday while leaving it running in an illegal spot that she is pushing to make a 2-mile 🚲 lane.
The most ridiculous part? She lives a short walk away & could’ve 🚴♂️ there just a minute slower than she drove it. But she didn’t.🚳
We are now at the point that DDOT has given up pretending that this project has any basis in what’s best for anyone in DC besides 🚴🚴♀️.
In order to justify stealing travel lanes (& parking), they’re going with the “we can just push thousands of 🚙🚑🚚 to other streets” defense.
That’s REALLY bad, but it pales in comparison to the outright corruption evidenced by this presentation slide.
Since it was clear that their own 2020 traffic study showed 30k-50k times more 🚘 vs 🚲 users on this avenue daily, they just memory-holed it before the public meeting!
BOTTOM LINE: DDOT is willing to spend many millions of 💵 to clog four other arterial roads (& countless residential streets) at a clip of 7000+🚘 per day.
That’s a daily net loss of roughly 10K+ potential customers for Conn Ave businesses! All so about 100🚴♂️ can get some lanes.
Every time I think I’m done tweeting about this debacle, another inane justification appears.
They again admit that under 100🚴♀️ use a road with 30K🚘. But, simply by adding 🚲 lanes, they contend the number of 🚴♀️ will increase by 5000%!
Just pulling numbers out of thin air now.
There was more.
What is now a 12-min ride thru the zone will take 20 mins if 🚴 get their way. In short, travel times will increase by 66.6%!👹
Oh & this key fact was not presented visually in the meeting b/c ‘someone’ drew a 🌭 on the previous slide. Coincidence? Stay tuned...
That’s the new DDOT Director pretending there are only 2 options from which to choose. He conveniently leaves out the “no-build” option.
And that’s Emperor Cheh declaring they should “get rid” of the 🚘option. Her subjects get what she wants &she wants to appease her 🚴♀️comrades.
And this is the FOUNDER of the local 🚴♂️ advocacy group calling in to a recent meeting FROM HIS CAR to tell us how 🚙🚗 make Connecticut Ave unsafe.
Here’s #GetToKnowYourANC Zeldin giving a🖕to the 30K+ folks who don’t ride a 🚲 down Conn Ave daily.
Anyone else surprised a 🚴 guy w/ an SUV & a house w/ three garage doors is “not as concerned” about making travel “less convenient” for others? #LetThemTakePublicTransportation
Funny how DDOT can project 🚴♀️ will go from under 100 to over 3000 on this street after admitting “we don’t have a model that looks at modal change.”
Also: they admit that congestion will increase on Conn Ave despite telling us the 🚘 will just divert to other roads.
To recap: DDOT is using the ridiculous ‘7k+🚙 can divert to other roads’ backdoor to get 🚴♂️ their precious PBLs.
Yet DDOT says they will “come up with a mitigation plan to make sure the diversion doesn’t occur to a great extent.”
Pure unadulterated duplicity. #NoThruTraffic
As if everything above wasn’t enough, they’re simultaneously trying to lower the speed limit on Conn Ave, too.
Of course, just to be sure they punish drivers to the fullest extent, they’ll be adding traffic cameras.
Keep these 🎥 eyesores in mind when you read the next tweet...
All along, DDOT has pooh-poohed the (no-cost) no-build option. Why?
Because a faceless govt agency (CFA) conveniently doesn’t support adding signs to a road THAT WOULDN’T BE CHANGED. Huh?!🤯
Yet, somehow, signage & speed🎥 associated w/ adding 🚲 lanes isn’t gonna be a problem.
Last video from the February rubber stamp meetings illustrating how #MissionCreep is built into yet another 🚴 project, even before it’s been approved.
Listen to this clip & bet me they don’t fully intend to extend this project to the MD border. I’ll take that wager at any odds.
Politicians like #GetToKnowYourANC Gore want to make life more difficult for 99%+ of us.
Meanwhile, she hypocritically:
1) isn’t riding 🚲
2) uses📱while driving {big 🚴♂️ no-no}
3) virtue signals on social media
4) then lies despite photo to contrary {is her teenager in her lap?}
DDOT finally replied to my cost question. Their answer? No answer til meeting day.
So they’ve spent over a year on this project, yet are somehow just getting around to the cost! Almost seems like they wanna hide it ALAP.
If PAINT costs $1.5M+, how much will 🚲 infra cost? $5M?
Speaking of burying the truth, who does it better than the media?
I gave journos a month of notice, yet nobody will touch it. Not dedicated transpo reporters. Not regional news voices. Not even investigative societies!
The gate is kept shut until AFTER the decision is made.🤫
Imagine the response DDOT would get if they proposed inconveniencing 30K+ people/day in order to build a scooter lane for under 100 people/day who 🛴 on a major DC street.
Yet somehow everything changes when you include 🚲 in with 🛴 w/o changing the under 100 riders/day metric.
The infamous Bridge to Nowhere was almost built to connect an island of 50 people w/ an existing ⛴ to Ketchikan. For obvious reasons, it was universally panned. #porkbarrel
Meanwhile, Conn Ave averages almost the same 50 🚴 per day, yet is about to be given the multimillion 👍.
Turns out I was right about the cost of this 🚴♀️ Concept C flimflammery: $5M! It’s always about 💵.
As evidence, peep DDOT’s literal Plan B. There’s essentially no diff between it & the No-Build option under current conditions. Yet, one costs $2M & the other was DQ’d arbitrarily.
At tonight’s online meeting, I had DDOT explain how they could penalize 125,000 🚘 daily to reward under 100 🚴♂️. They of course didn’t engage with these numbers... just gave generalized appeals to safety that couldn’t be disputed due to immediate muting by the admin. #QuasiPublic
Epilogue: WaPo reporter finally decides to write Conn Ave article now that public meeting period is over.
She then pens piece that’s 99.9% in favor of 🚲 lanes which, of course, doesn’t include me or any of my arguments against the project. Not one.
washingtonpost.com/local/traffica…
So weird how DC’s 🚴♀️ advocacy head always seems to have an excuse for using his 🚘. It’s almost as if urbanists only bike when it’s convenient...
But, yeah, let’s make driving way harder for everyone just in case the conditions are ideal for the 1% of the population that bikes.
It’s over. Despite only 1% of the population regularly biking, somehow the vote was 24-2 against the 99% of us who use 🚘🚕🚍 to traverse Conn Ave. Unreal.
How? Four reasons:
1)Ignoring common sense
2)Discarding the data
3)Suppression of opposition
4)Fear of 🚴♂️mob (or members)
According to founder of local 🚴♂️ advocacy group, there’s “never enough (🚘) parking.”
Total conflict w/ earlier quotes saying removal of 100s of spaces isn’t a problem cuz there’s plenty of parking.
Almost like they’ll say anything to get what they want.
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