WASHINGTON — About 75 percent of D.C. traffic lights have been adjusted recently to improve the flow of traffic, but it has not been enough to address some major congestion.
“The streets of Washington are in gridlock these days,” said Councilmember Jack Evans, who represents Ward 2.
“It’s a combination of a lot: Beach Drive being closed, Metro not working like it should, special events, who knows, people driving more. Do we have any thoughts both cosmetically and practically?” Evans asked District Department of Transportation Director Leif Dormsjo at a D.C. Council roundtable this week.
Dormsjo said the city has finally hired and deployed additional traffic control officers that the Bowser administration promised this spring. He also said that the city is about three-fourths of the way through retiming traffic signals — a process that began in 2012.
“We’re seeing improvements in travel times and travel reliability” because of the traffic light changes, Dormsjo said.
But overall, buses, which sit in the same traffic as cars in most cases, have slowed down across the region during the past few years.
“From a macro perspective, low gas prices, the SafeTrack program and real estate development and construction … all those things have a cumulative effect,” Dormsjo said.
Evans, who usually drives rather than taking the bus or Metro despite serving as the chairman of Metro’s board, cited an “impossible” trip during rush hour last Thursday afternoon that took him more than an hour. He was trying to travel from Georgetown to 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue for a meeting at the Wilson Building.
“The light finally changed and they moved. My light changed and I couldn’t go, and you know me, I get crazy, I could jump out of the car and start screaming at everybody,” Evans said.
He said he has received many constituent complaints too.
“It’s just everywhere, a mess. And people are cutting each other off and beeping. And is there a way of bringing order or a semblance of order to what looks like a chaotic situation immediately, as I say, now, tomorrow night, Monday?” Evans asked.
Dormsjo suggested traffic conditions could improve as drivers adjust to the closure of Beach Drive.
Dormsjo, Evans and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh believe traffic control officers help significantly at key intersections where they are deployed.
“Believe me, I will find money for more TCOs, I believe we should have them deployed as much as possible,” Cheh said.
She also wants to make sure school crossing guard positions are filled.
“They serve a function that people appreciate extraordinarily. They just love it. They like when somebody’s in that intersection and making people who are blocking the box stop blocking the box,” Cheh said.
She mentioned the possibility of photo enforcement for blocking the box, which sparked a joke from Evans about illegal U-turns.
Safety advocates have caught him swinging through the bike lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue before.
“I don’t do that anymore,” Evans said.
